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12.1.1.5. Real Iife vs. classroom listening

In real life listening is easier because of the fact that speakers will adjust what they say to listener’s level of understanding. Speaker usually does his/her best to make it easier. In the classroom listening to the tape is much morę difficult. The crucial differences between the two types of listening situations are presented below (based on Gough, Ch., Teaching Listening Skills: 28.11.1993, lecture).

Real worid/iife:	Classroóni: - ’ . ' - >> '
- most listening is interactive, it involves both speaking and listening,	- a lot of ‘passive’ listening to tapes,
- listener can give feedback,	- no feedback,
- shared context,	- no real context,
— visual clues(context, gestures, etc.) help understanding,	- there may be no visual clues,
- unpredictable,	- context known in advance (at least by the teacher),
- no record kept,	- tapescript usually available,
- no set task,	- task provided by teacher; usually involves taking notes, etc.,
- only one hearing,	- can be played morę than once,
- listener has purpose - to establish relationship, be entertained, be polite or get information,	- listening purpose created by task, may be purely pedagogical,
- no evaluation of success or failure.	- teacher may evaluate students’ success in doing the task.

12.1.1.5.1. What makes real life listening difficult?

There are certain things that hinder listeners’ understanding of real-world listening, some of which shall be enumerated below (Ur: 1996):

* S trouble with sounds - not all English sounds are present in leamers’ languages,

—    trying to understand eveiy word - not all bits of information seem to be eąually important,

—    speed - students have problems with following fast, natural native speech therefore, they need to develop sensitivity to informal,

everyday speech (amorig other varieties) and ought to be exposed to as much of it as possibłe to master the skill,

—    one hearing seems not enough - a way of remedying this situation may be exposing students to texts which include redundant passages in which the needed information is presented morę than once, difficulty in keeping up - when there is a lot of or too much information that comes in, leamers ought to be encouraged to “pick out what is essential and allow themselves to ignore the rest” (1996:112),

—    tiredness - if the listening goes on for too long learners find it morę difficult to concentrate, hence the passages need to be broken down into manageable units.

12.1.1.5.2. Why is it difficult to understand a native speaker?

The following features are responsible for difficulties in

foreign speech comprehension:

—    the listener is not a native speaker of that language,

—    listener’s limited vocabulary, the use of unknown words,

—    different intonation pattems,

—    it is morę difficult to infer the meaning of a word from context than in the native language,

—    different stress - in English prepositions, auxiliaries, conjunctions are not stressed,

—    different / unfamiliar grammatical pattems,

—    different sound system - morę vowels that do not overlap with listener’s native ones,

—    the presence of weak and strong forms in pronunciation,

—    the presence of consonants that do not exist in listener’s mother tongue,

—    the speed of the spoken text (in case of misunderstand something while reading one can pause and think, it is not always possibłe with the listening text),

—    spoken language is usually less elaborate and difficult, simpler words and forms are used; the utterance, however, is not as neat as written one, while speaking one does not have time to organise it so there are pauses, fillers, speaker hesitates.

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